all,

I have a file that is like the following, with patterns of pipes in it:

Code:
|||  ||  | |
|  ||| | | |
||  || ||
I have to consider each row of pipe characters to be in blocks of 3 characters each (e.g. - positions 1-3, then 4-6, etc, etc...) but I have to capture all of the pipes, in sequence, like so:

positions 1-3 for lines 1-3, then positions 4-6 for lines 1-3, etc, etc...

anyone have any efficient ideas on how to get this done besides writing severely redundant control structures like loops, one after the other? That's about all I can think of here but I don't have enough extensive knowledge in VCPP to know any alternative resources that can solve the problem...

thanks.